I want to make a disclaimer here… the last time I actively used an iPhone as a daily driver, was my iPhone4s – which I thought was great – until they had the iOS7 update and then the phone just didn’t work and was so slow it was actually unusable. So I jumped ship and bought an LGv10 – which was great until it got stuck in a bootloop, as did my next phone the, the LG G6, then my Huawei P20 Mate Pro. All of which were excellent for their cameras at the time. But I digress. I have a shiny new iPhone 15 Max Pro.
This is my short journey of moving platforms… and it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Hopefully you’ll learn something if you are in the same boat as me.
Most things had worked really well. There have been some “what the heck” moments, but overall it’s been a smooth transition.
Firstly, the setup process has been fine. I’ve already got an Apple ID, so I’ve had no issues there, and I’ve made the transition of importing all my text messages from the Samsung phone to the new iPhone through the use of the Apple supported software “Move to iOS”.
I didn’t try the WhatsApp transfer, as many people have reported it didn’t work, and… when I started doing the initial transfer, it said it wanted to take 6 hours. I needed the phone within an hour, so that really wasn’t an option at the time. I don’t really use WhatsApp as my primary comms method anyway, so that’s really not a big loss.
However, what has not gone well is the migration of Viber from Android to iOS. It’s an absolute disaster.
There is no way of moving your messages across properly. I’ve got all my stuff backed up on Google Drive – 4GB to be exact. Can the iOS version of Viber import or read this? Nope. No way. the iOS version can ONLY use an iCloud restore. Too bad for me.
There’s a heap of blogs claiming this migration can be done, but to be honest, I don’t think they’ve ever done it before, ’cause it isn’t possible.
There is an app called “Backup Trans Android Viber to iPhone Transfer for Mac“, but after installing it on my Mac, and running through the process on the Android phone, it came up with an error when connecting to the iPhone and failed.
So, if you are wanting to migrate your Viber messages, don’t even try. The only “Migration” I managed to get was a bunch of empty “Group”s with no previous discussion.
The good news is that on the Mac, I still have the full history with images, so that’s a good thing.
Other weird things that have happened with the iMessages now, is that I have a heap of “group messages” where the title of the message is now “Me & ‘John'” or whoever the message is from (not specifically John). It’s all migrated weird instead of just a singular message receipient. It seems to think they are group messages… why? I have no idea.
I also have 15 permanent unread messages that I can’t get to be “read”. I’ve investigated this a lot, and presently there’s no way to make them ‘read’… because these ‘unread’ messages simply don’t exist in the iMessage app.
Update on the unread messages: This solved it believe it or not!!! hahaha go Siri! How Do I Fix a Wrong iMessage Unread Message Count?
The absolute best and easiest solution reported by iPhone owners is to ask Siri to read the messages for you. Here’s how to do this:
- Make sure that you have Siri enabled on your iPhone by going to Settings > Siri & Search, then toggling on the options for Listen for “Hey Siri” or Press Side Button for Siri.
- Trigger Siri using the method selected above, then say “Hey Siri, read my messages”.
While Siri might not be universally appreciated by all iPhone owners, there are instances in which its utility becomes undeniable. Fixing the wrong iMessage unread message count bug is one such situation.
I also managed to copy a few photos over with “SHAREit”, but while that’s gone ok, the creation dates of the photos became the time they were copied, rather than their original ‘taken’ date.
Speaking of the Apple Photos app, that’s very ordinary too. There’s no way of sorting the dates or times of when a photo was taken.
Another stupid thing I’ve noticed… Closing apps… Why is there no “Close All Apps” button??? I feel like an idiot flicking up 50 times to close the apps I have open.
Speaking of other weird stupid things… icons on the phone desktop. Why are they all “organised”??? I can’t have icons sitting at the bottom, and icons at the top. They all push to the top. It’s quite weird and boring.
I also miss the double tap on the screen to lock it. Why isn’t that a thing??
Today I wanted to add a contact to the home screen as well as a quick call icon. Man, that was a process… You have to use the Shortcut app and go through a process. Once again, not what I expected, and not as simple as choosing a contact and “Share to Home Screen”. Really stupid way of doing things.
I’m also trying to figure out the the ‘focus’ modes as well. I need to make it so that it sleeps from 10pm to 10am and doesn’t do any alerts.
Call Favourites also didn’t come across.
Also, clicking on text to make corrections is frustrating too. the cursor often just goes where it wants to, which is often above the line of the word I just clicked on.
How is it, in 2023 that you still can’t just use your music as a ring tone!!!???? What the heck Apple??
The Apple Calendar app is also terrible to use too. I want to see all my events for the month with the text of what they are showing – just like it is on the Apple Deskop version of the Calendar. I don’t just want a dot showing up on the day.
The Google Calendar app works much better from a practical point of view.
While this is just the design of the phone, I’m still getting used to the side the volume buttons are on. That’s just muscle memory and will change over time. There’s also no back button… that’s a bit annoying too, but it’s by design and what separates iOS from Android. I’ve even had to learn how to take a screen shot in iOS.
I also discovered that YouTube doesn’t hover display with Picture-in-Picture, while I’m using other programs, such as with Android. I thought that was standard. This is actually a setting in the YouTube App, that is strangely not on by default.
There is also a setting in the iOS settings for this too.
Speaking of YouTube, I was wondering what was going on with the screen of this phone too… Was it not an OLED? Why was there pixel leakage in YouTube? It turns out there is a setting for this too, and it’s called “Ambient Mode”. Switch that off to…
Something else I noticed this time, such as when I got my iPad Pro many years ago. There’s also no complimentary Apple TV subscription for the first year either.
Also, why the heck can I only have 4 entries on the home screen?? Only 4?!
My Android phone has 6. There’s basically no room for true customisation in iOS.
One thing I have tried, and that’s an app called Draw Things. I have it on my MacMini and now on the phone. It’s a front end to Stable Diffusion. Wow.
Also, as a developer, I like to try different things in different browsers. All browsers on iOS use webkit. On Android, I have the use of gecko, chrome. It is really a big thing? No… But when there are bugs present, it is a thing.
Today I was even playing around with the LIDAR and scanned my lounge room. Was it awesome? Sort of, but it still had work to do, but it’s still pretty cool, and I’ll probably try it some more in the future.
I’ve also discovered something today that is an absolute show stopper. I’m not happy about this to be honest. On Android, I can silence my phone, yet, as if I had an emergency phone call that needed to be made to me, after 2 calls within 10 minutes, my phone would make audible sounds for a phone call. This is essential for me as a first responder. Getting phone calls from members of the rescue squad that I don’t have stored in my phone and having me miss calls now, is a show stopper. Where is the feature to allow anyone to call me when my phone is on silent, so if it is an emergency, my phone will start ringing, yet be smart enough to stop a single accidental call?? At the moment, Apple expects me to have all the phone numbers sorted and authorised in my phone of who could ring me, or simply have an everybody can ring… With no 2 call filtering. What is currently implemented is simply not an option. It must be fixed Apple. It’s bad forward thinking.
Apple, please fix this. iOS 17 needs work in this area.
This is wrongly implemented and needs to be fixed.
So, what happens now to my Android phone? Well, the Samsung A52S will now go back to being a DEV phone, and the iPhone will become my primary – as is the current plan.
Have I lost or gained anything? Yes.
I’ve lost customisation of the App desktop for the phone. I don’t have the use of a PushOver widget, which I use on the Android a lot. I still don’t know if Google Maps will give me a speed reading when driving as yet.
I can now iMessage my dad on his computer now too, and send and receive large media files via ‘text/imessage’, and be a part of proper group chats.
There’s some things on this phone that I’m really surprised about for the lack of features… Have I been spoilt? Is Apple just holding back on things? It makes no sense why I’m going “What the heck”… I thought they would have been standard… Oh well. I’ll just keep on learning how to do things the “Apple Way”.
I got the 1TB phone to last at least 4 years, which photos and video. Hopefully it’ll be worth it well.
Finally however, this iPhone15 Pro Max is now on USB-C. About time.
Anyway, let’s see how we go. Am I an Apple Fan Boy… Nope, I’m all about the right tool for the right job.
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